Budget Be Damned

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

Well fuschia but I'll take purple too. I am so high class now.

In the man world (mostly) fuchsia is just either people or pink gone wrong

[Training Wheels]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

So I guess that would make Mike along with better than 90 percent of those members with boats here on the Cruisers Forum.... a "part timer." Very Interesting...

As I stated very clearly in earlier posts, I only budget food, communications and local transportation in our onboard budget. If I stay somewhere around 15 euros per day on daily expenditures.... all is good, I don't need to be concerned with the rest.

Food, communications, and local transportation? As a full time cruiser, I wish that were my only expenses. I’m only going to count in my budget flip flops. I think I can get buy on about 10 cents a day! [emoji38]

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Training Wheels

Food, communications, and local transportation? As a full time cruiser, I wish that were my only expenses. I’m only going to count in my budget flip flops. I think I can get buy on about 10 cents a day! [emoji38]

Well, if you going go with the cheap crap flip flops

[Training Wheels]

I go barefoot a lot.....

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by daletournier

To be honest I'd rather be a part time cruiser, looking at making that happen, it would be nice to be off the boat for 4-6 mths /year.... I'm thinking European summers, the cheaper parts of Europe (that's my budget tie in) .

You need to get the book Europe on 15euros a Day by Captain Cruiser

[Training Wheels]

Does he include flip flops?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

So I guess that would make Mike along with better than 90 percent of those members with boats here on the Cruisers Forum.... a "part timer.” ...

I am indeed a part-time cruiser. I usually explain that I’m a full-timer for about 1/2 of each year, much like you and many others here. If you live on your boat for extended periods, and your boat moves around, then you’re a cruiser to me.

To get back to the actual topic, while most of the folks here are trying hard to figure out ways to make more money, I try to find ways to live less expensively. As a small business owner I know there are two ways to increase profits: increase revenue or decrease expenses. This is why I appreciate SailorChic’s experience. I always hold her up as the gold standard when it comes to this “$500/month” aspiration.

I’m not quite in SC’s league. And I can’t even imagine Ken’s low-cost living, but at a monthly budget of around $1200 US for two adults, we do pretty well. And by “well” I mean we live well, eat well, and enjoy life.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Training Wheels

Food, communications, and local transportation? As a full time cruiser, I wish that were my only expenses. I’m only going to count in my budget flip flops. I think I can get buy on about 10 cents a day! [emoji38]

I forgot to include diesel fuel in the 15 euro per day budget.... yes, it's included.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by daletournier

It's all about choices. I have a young family on a Great Dane 28 next to me at the moment, on the other side of them I have friends on a Amel 54. The guys on the Amel and myself dropped more on our boats while in Capetown than the Great Dane is worth. We also spend significantly on Land travel while in Africa where as the young family don't.

Although I try to do everything as cheap as possible the reality is it still costs, cruisers like the ones beside me just don't spend money on anything but essentials.

I need to hang out with the guys on the great Dane and not my friends on the Amel, life would become cheaper for me.. Lol.

Sure if you live a very minimalist lifestyle, it can be pretty cheap in Africa. You can do that in the USA or Europe and live very cheaply also. If you anchor out on the ICW catch fish and live on beans & rice in a small uncomfortable boat, you can live on next to nothing.

My point was for the same lifestyle, more often than not, it costs about the same...if you start pointing to a family of 4 on a tiny 28' monohull, they aren't living the same lifestyle as the Amel.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Agreed. Tell us how to get by on 15 Euro a day!

Why am I imagining the old joke about how to get a million dollars...first start with two million....

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

I’m not sure I understand. The free enterprise system is not about making employees wealthy it’s about making owners/shareholders wealthy. Companies do their level best to keep overheads as low as possible, that’s how the game is played. If you are being paid a high salary it’s not because your worth it it’s because the companies have no choice but to pay you or you’ll move on to other opportunities, that’s also how the system works. The real fortunate ones here have a Daddy that was rich and they lucked out because everything is going to be much easier for them.

Then be an owner...even if you want to work an hourly job, be the owner of your job and earnings...

If you just want to show up and do the minimum...expect them to look at how they can cut the cost for having you around (or not even having you around). If you make yourself valuable, expect them to go out of their way to keep you happy because you are maximizing the benefit/cost ratio...that or someone else will steal you away.

It's funny how people talk about how bad the job market was back in 2009...yet we had multiple unsolicited job offers from outside our fields of expertise during that time.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Markets are cyclical and always will be, they go up and they go down and sometimes they are flat. If you are well into your retirement years you should be just as interested in protecting capital as you are making money because you simply won’t have the years to make up for a major correction and thru the jumps and bumps there are always large corrections. Someone in their 30’s 40’s or 50’s will often be able to recover from a big correction but 60’s and 70’s not so much.

I keep seeing people say this or similar...markets go up and markets go down...implying that it's a zero sum game but reality is over the long term, the up times have pretty much always been longer and higher than the down times.

Protecting capital has some value but with a 30-40yr retirement, that can't be the primary goal. If SB had done this, his retirement account would be down by 25-35% already instead of less than 5%.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by chowdan

I dont know if i believe that. I move to the USA when I turned 18. I've never been to college, in fact I tried to go but was declined financial aid. I have had zero assistance from family members.

My first year in the US I made $16k(2009). I moved to Seattle with $1000 in 2010 and that year I made $22k(+/-). The next year I broke 30k and was stuck in that rate for about 3 years before I got a bump to $45k(different company). From there I went to 85k and was at that rate for a year and a half before i set off on my trip. I came back in 2018, bought my sailboat, worked as a glazier for $18/hr for 6 months while also starting my own contracting company before returning back to IT where I now make 95k.

Yes I may be an outlier. Yes I may be considered different than an average person. I sacrificed a ton in my life to achieve what I have achieved

The guy running a backhoe could easily follow in the same foot steps, he just needs to re-prioritize their goals. Yes they may be struggling to pay rent, or trying to feed a family. Its not hard to spend free time to learn something that brings in higher pay, one just has to have drive. I would say an average person in america has "fat" in their expenses that they can cut to gain savings if that's their goal.

Of course there will be outliers who have made prior choices that screw their future selves or have unexpected medical bill's but i believe by having minimal debt I was able to not screw my future self.

Maybe I'm just jaded, or have an incredible drive, or am just pure lucky, but I look at a lot of friends and coworkers who have struggled along the side of me, yet I have rose above them financially and I believe that is because of my drive to achieve my goals which in turn, caused me to sacrifice a lot throughout the last 9 years.

The difference between what you make and what the backhoe operator makes is the field you are in.

The backhoe operator has tons of drive. He probably busted his ass for a few years handling a shovel or directing traffic around the road site worksite to even get a chance to get on the backhoe and make a bit more money

For a guy like that to suddenly go into the IT field would be similar to you moving to Mars and setting up house

You are young so it might to be hard to explain but many people tend to stay in the same income bracket generation after generation. It's why when folks that work at 7-11 take a break they buy a couple packs of cigarettes. Cigarettes are crazy expense for a 7-11 worker to afford

It's the same reason someone can join the military and travel the world without learning anything about other cultures and ends up coming back home to where he grew up and getting a similar job like his friends from childhood

As IT, computers, electronics, engineering go, you usually need a good strong math background or a natural tendency toward math and logic. If you have that, those jobs are relatively easy and are good paying

If you don't have those skills, getting higher pay without lots of education in the right field is quite hard

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Damn so what!!!!!!!

I would come home everyday having personally touched and effected probably $50M worth of equipment that impacted $1B worth of business operations.

You know what that has to do with the topic???????????????????????????

That's right, NOT a freaking thing!

The difference is the farmer has to PAY for all the millions of dollars worth of equipment and also operate it at times when he isn't directing the remainder of his workforce. Then there's the maintenance and operating costs

Then he has to figure out when to sell his product and hope the weather or his country doesn't screw things up with trade wars etc

What it has to do with the topic is ………....Budgeting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[daletournier]

Just worked out my daily average so far this year. $82 usd.

This includes alot of boat related stuff in Capetown and safari type stuff in Africa. Hoping the rest of the year is cheaper.

At the above rate I'll be 10k over budget by the end of the year.